


i know it’s hard to tell but i think i really like you

by peachy_junguwu



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Open Ending, Possible Part 2, Slow Burn, confident gays, i really tried to do slow burn I’m so sorry, no angst I’m not cruel, norenmin, panicked gays, sicheng is a good friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 13:51:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18779569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachy_junguwu/pseuds/peachy_junguwu
Summary: in which Renjun, Jaemin, and Jeno are hopelessly crushing on each other, and Renjun builds up his confidence with the help of his friends





	i know it’s hard to tell but i think i really like you

**Author's Note:**

> this is my second fic ever (still not finished with my first) and i hope you all enjoy it!  
> not all of the dreamies are in it, that’s really just how it turned out, but i hope it worked.

The pink-haired boy looked up from his desk. All the other students were working diligently save for two. First he observed the boy with sand-colored hair, staring off into space [same]. Then his eyes wandered over to that guy who always looked nervous and — wait was he looking back at him?  
Jaemin quickly looked away, as did the other boy, then he looked back and laughed under his breath because _aww, I just made him blush, cute!_

Renjun sat at his desk, trying to focus on the classwork. He decided to look around; maybe he could find solace in anyone else not paying attention. He stopped on Lee Jeno, probably the easiest person to look at in the entire town. His eyes turned into tiny little crescents when he smiled, he made the cutest sounds when he was confused, and his laugh was the nicest thing to listen to. Renjun was whipped.   
But then, Renjun caught a glance of a certain pink-haired boy looking at Jeno. He seemed just as entranced as Renjun had been himself. Instead of feeling jealous, his affection for Jaemin took over. He would never admit it to another living soul, but Renjun was quite frankly pining after two boys. He couldn’t tell anyone; he was positive that they would mock him. Chenle and Jisung would make sure he never heard the end of it. But what was poor Renjun to do when Na Jaemin and Lee Jeno were _existing right there?_   
Breaking out of his inner monologue, Renjun realized that he had been staring at the pink-haired boy across the circle of desks....and Jaemin was staring back! He felt his face heating up and quickly averted his eyes before a full on blush spread over his cheeks. A part of him hoped Jaemin didn’t see, but another part wanted so badly for his feelings to be acknowledged, even though they probably wouldn’t be reciprocated. 

Jeno sat at his desk and looked off into space, wondering why cats were so cute. At least, that’s what anyone would assume was going on based on their assumptions about Jeno. The truth was, there was way more to him than people thought. Yes, he did love cats. Yes, he was a total softie. But he had other feelings, too. He often spaced out, but his brain was usually swarming with thoughts, it wasn’t just blank. On that day he was wondering what it would take to get the two cutest boys he’d ever seen to go on a date with him.   
He knew it would be tricky. I mean, how many guys would be willing to date multiple people (consensually) at once? Jeno also knew that Jaemin and Renjun liked each other. They made it pretty obvious, but they were pretty much oblivious to it, blinded by their own emotions. He really hoped they would like him, too, but he knew it wasn’t realistic, so he spent his time fantasizing about what it would be like if they actually did like him back. 

 

It had pretty much always been this way. Ever since each of the boys could remember, they had been crushing on at least one of the other two. None of them thought it strange to like two people at once. Each of them, however, thought that the other two did. So they all just waited, like sitting ducks, waiting for something to change. We can pretty much skip over most of this process, and I can just tell you now that you didn’t miss anything. Until where we pick up our story: it was a Tuesday, and that class they all had together had just ended. Jeno decided he’d go for it. He swiftly walked out of the classroom so he could catch Renjun and Jaemin before they each got too far. Luckily for him, his two crushes actually bumped into each other getting through the door, so he only had to do this once. “Oh, hey Renjun, Jaemin! I was wondering if you guys wanted to study for the upcoming test together. Maybe we could all meet up?”, Jeno questioned. He laughed to himself as the two boys in front of him tensed up. He could see however, some little burst of excitement in Jaemin. The pink-haired boy said, “Yeah, sure! Renjun, how about you?” Both looked over at the shortest questioningly until they saw him relax a bit. “Um, yeah, okay, when did you wanna meet?” Jeno smiled his brightest smile, the one where his eyes became tiny little crescents, the one that made the other two swoon every time. “I was thinking we could go to this little coffee shop in my neighborhood. It’s nice because it’s not a quiet as a library and there aren’t people from school there. How does Friday after school sound?” Both boys agreed happily, then they had to get to their next classes.   
Jeno was ecstatic to say the least. He felt like he was flying. This was finally, _finally_ getting somewhere. Sure, it may have been a long shot, but that didn’t matter. He had to try. He would rather try and fail than not try and regret it forever.

 

Friday morning, Jeno woke up precisely at 6 AM so he could eat a good breakfast and get ready for the day ahead of him. He made himself an omelette, took a shower, went through his entire skin care routine, and finally looked at his closet to get dressed. He needed something that made it looked like he tried (which he did) but not too hard; something that would make Renjun and Jaemin weak, but not in a weird way. In a sweet way. He decided to go for a vertical-striped button down shirt with black jeans. The stripes were white and sort of a denim color. He left the top two buttons undone. Then he mussed up his hair just a little bit and let it go wherever it wanted to. He then threw on his Vans and got to school. 

Jaemin was equally excited for the study date. He chose not to think about what it meant and instead to just go with his gut feeling which said that this was a good thing. He put on a white button down with some flowers printed on it here and there, and wore a plain white t-shirt underneath it, leaving the top five buttons of the button down undone. He then put on some washed out dark blue jeans, tucked in his shirt, put on his docs and left. 

Renjun was beyond nervous. He wanted to enjoy this. How often does one get to go on a study date with both of their crushes? He wanted to be confident. He knew part of his charm was his cute nervousness, but he always wanted to be more comfortable with himself. So, to put himself out there a bit, Renjun put on some parachute pants and a fitted black short sleeved crop top, being sure to wear a sweater over it until the school day ended.

 

As Jaemin walked into school that day, the birds chirped and the sun shone bright. It smelled like spring, but not to the point where everyone was sniffly and got up in the middle of class to get a tissue every five seconds. He looked at his phone and saw that he still had a full 30 minutes before classes started, and he didn’t need to get anything from his locker, so he sat on a bench on campus and put his earbuds in. Because it was so early, he needed something light and happy, but quiet, so he played Offbeat by Clara C. It was a perfect start to a perfect day.  
He sat through all of his classes patiently that day, because he knew it would all be worth it when he finally saw the two boys he was crushing on majorly. By the time the bell rang for lunch, he was bouncing on his toes, anticipating what would happen as soon as 3:00 came around. He practically skipped outside of class and all the way to the common space where all his friends hung out. A green head of hair flew into his sight and from that boy emitted an ear-splitting screech. Just a typical day being friends with Zhong Chenle. Jaemin sighed but still smiled, he was too happy to be annoyed, “Hey, dolphin boy.” “Why do you look so over the moon? Is there a,, boy?????” Jaemin then started giggling uncontrollably, and at this point their other friends became rather invested in whatever tea was being spilled. Sicheng, one of the upperclassmen in their friend group, asked “Ooooh is this that guy you were telling me about? Or....the other one?” Jaemin whined, “Ugh, relax, Jeno just asked Renjun and I to get coffee and study after school today, that’s all.” This did nothing to settle his rowdy friends. Sicheng’s eyes widened. “Holy shit its both of them.” Jaemin took a seat at the table and sunk into his chair as he covered his face in his hands in embarrassment. Sicheng’s boyfriend Yuta who was also part of the group spoke up from his seat where Sicheng was sitting on his lap. “Woah, you liked two guys and at least one of them liked both of you how the hell does that happen?”, he asked incredulously. Chenle had been bouncing up and down in the background, which no one really payed attention to at this point (it was pretty typical of him). He finally sat down in a seat next to Jaemin when he was done getting his energy out. He smushed his right side into his friend’s left side and asked, “So when are you meeting them?” “About 3:15 once we all have our books together. Jeno’s gonna drive us there because his neighborhood is a bit far, but it should only be a ten minute drive.” Sicheng, always quiet but super supportive, said “The shirt was a good choice, they’ll love it.” Sicheng was also a friend of Renjun’s, though he didn’t know Jeno.   
The subject moved to something else and soon enough lunch was over. Only two classes left. At this point Jaemin started to get nervous. He’d really hoped he wouldn’t, but as he watched the clock tediously, he couldn’t stop the growing pit in his stomach. Luckily, the day did end eventually, and his heart rate started going up as he walked to his locker to pack up. This time in a good way. He liked these boys so much, he just hoped they liked him back.

Renjun slowly put his books in his locker and packed the ones he needed. He was anxious, but he kept telling himself to look at it as the perfect opportunity to be a confident gay for once in his life. So, he tugged at the sleeve cuffs of his hoodie until his hands were fully in the sleeves, then pulled the whole thing off of his torso to reveal his crop top and with it, his flat tummy. This was a way to motivate his confidence. He couldn’t dress this way if he was gonna be shy. So he fixed his posture and started walking out of the school to Jeno’s parking spot where the three would meet.   
Jeno was already there, leaning against his car and looking around at the lovely trees and sky. As the short boy approached him, Jeno looked up and saw what he was wearing. His mouth fell open a little. What the hell? Why was this boy so perfect? His skin was smooth looking and not too pale. His shoulders weren’t very broad, and he was fit but not too much. His waist and stomach were showing and they were tiny. Jeno didn’t consider this necessary at all, but he admired it on Renjun; he admired anything and everything on Renjun.

He watched as Renjun swiftly walked over; he felt lightheaded.  
“Renjun, hey,” he breathed out, “How’s your day been?” Renjun smiled, leaving his anxiety behind him. “It was great! You?” “Just the usual: boring chem class, fell asleep in history,” Jeno fell into a relaxed smile, fighting the urge to flirt with the boy. He didn’t want to go too fast. So they chatted a bit before Jaemin arrived. And wow, were neither of them ready for that.  
Renjun and Jeno could only say “Wow,” when Jaemin was just close enough for them to see what he was wearing. They turned back to each other and giggled at their synchronization. They both knew and fully acknowledged the fact that they were head over heals for Na Jaemin, but they were also whipped for each other, so there really weren’t any bad feelings.  
Jaemin did not seem to be in any different kind of state. Jeno’s hair and overall presence made him weak. When he looked over at Renjun, it only made it worse. He couldn’t contain himself, these boys were going to be the death of him.  
The three of them then got into the car and drove off.

When they reached Jeno’s neighborhood, he started explaining everything around. “There’s the ice cream shop where pretty much everyone goes. Literally you could go there on a Thursday night in winter and there might be children and parents and music playing. There’s the library, which is good for studying if you like quiet, but any time in the early afternoon is kinda loud because of all the kids there. There are two sushi bars, one is just 18+ which no one likes here because this is a family town, but the other one is all ages and its soooo good, I’ll have to take you there one time,” Renjun and Jaemin looked at each other at this, both blushing, and Jeno kept talking, “And here we have the coffee shop. It’s a little grimy but in the best way. All the furniture is most definitely donated and they display stuff from local artists that you can buy.” Jeno parked the car and they walked in to the shop, the black-haired boy holding the door for them to walk through.

He had been right about the place, it was cute and old and felt oddly comfortable. Like a used book store you’d find in the city, but with more families and less pretentious hipsters. But still not too crowded. There were a few tables taken and you could hear the sounds of people talking and drinks being made. Jeno led the two boys to a table. He pulled out a chair for each of them. “What do you guys want? I’ll go up and order.” Renjun looked up at the boy, “Can you get me a medium jasmine tea?” Jeno smiled at this, “Sure thing. Jaemin?” “Iced americano with 3 shots of espresso.” Jeno laughed while Renjun judged him hard. “Don’t judge me, I just get more and more accustomed to each amount of espresso that I become immune and need more.” “That really doesn’t help your case,” Renjun said as Jeno walked away, giggling as he went, to get their drinks.   
As he ordered them, Renjun got his books out along with his extremely extra pencil case. It was jammed packed. But they were good pens so it was understandable.  
Jaemin seemed to have spaced out for a minute but he came back to reality once he remembered that Renjun was sitting _in front of him oh my god he’s so pretty why is he so pretty look at his little face and his nose and his eyes_ and before he knew it, the pink-haired boy was staring. But he wasn’t ashamed.   
Renjun looked up from his planner, in which he was writing a to-do list for the afternoon, to see Jeno walking back to their table with three drinks and three pastries in his hands. Jaemin got up from his seat before the black-haired boy could get very far, and said, “Oh, let me help you. And thanks.” Jeno set down all their drinks then held up the treats, “Almond croissant for Jaemin, perfect for coffee, cherry danish for my chai latte, tea cake for Renjun because you know....tea,” he trailed off as the Chinese boy giggled at him. They both thanked Jeno as he got his study materials out. “Jaemin, you wanna...get your book out?” Jaemin looked surprised. “Oh! Yeah. Definitely.” The other two laughed at him then started getting to work.  
They went over practice problems from the book and from Jeno’s go-to website for math practice, going through each problem step by step until all of them understood it completely. They studied the concepts they had to memorize until they could each recite it back to each other. They came up with some problems for each other, even, which proved to be really fricking difficult.  
After about an hour and a half, they figured they were ready for their test, and they somehow started talking about music. Jeno knew a lot of music. He had obscure songs from literally all genres, even country (but only the good kind — most of it’s blegh). And from that they moved on to the subject of memes. After wasting a lot of time (they weren’t gonna complain though, they were having fun), things were slowing down and they ended up doodling in their notebooks while just talking aimlessly. Their conversations seemed to run incredibly smoothly.   
Jeno felt accomplished. He had managed to give their little love triangle thing a push and it worked. No more longing gazes in the hallways. They could talk now. At least be friends. He didn’t know if Jaemin and Renjun were ready for anything more yet, but he was fine with that.

 

And it seemed to turn out that they weren’t. Maybe he was being dramatic, but Jaemin just did not seem to want to talk to Jeno. And Renjun was still working on his confidence. Jeno wanted to give him time before he rushed anything; they all had to be in good places before he would finally ask them out one day. So, Jeno took it slow. Really slow.  
Each day he would say hi to Renjun in bio and Jaemin in history, then both of them in math, but nothing more. He never noticed the sad looks when he was looking the other way.

 

Jaemin was conflicted. He really liked Renjun, and he really liked Jeno. Studying with them was so fun, and he didn’t want to ruin it by liking them. But he couldn’t deal with just being their friends either. And dating one but not the other sounded like hell. What was a boy to do?

Renjun noticed the other boys’ holding back, and it drove him insane. He decided he would overcome his shyness for the sake of shoving some sense into his two idiotic crushes’ brains. But it took him a while. Especially when thoughts of having to address the situation came to mind.  
After a few days of thinking about it, Renjun figured some kind of change might be good. Now he wasn’t going to become a different person or anything, but he remembered wearing that crop top to their study date and feeling really good about himself. He felt some kind of adrenaline from it and he wanted to try it again.   
So he had Sicheng take him shopping. They went to all the sustainable stores they knew of [we stan] and ended up finding some things he really liked. Some outfits were pretty soft and involved skirts, which he had in all honesty thought about trying but never got up the nerve to do it. Others were quite the opposite and involved tight pants and lots of darker muted colors with dangly earrings. He liked both. Each seemed to bring out different sides of himself, but he felt equally genuine in both. Kinda like how he liked Jeno and Jaemin.  
“You look stunning,” he heard Sicheng say as he looked down at the ground in an outfit he still couldn’t quite imagine himself wearing in public. “I just wanna be more confident, how do you do it?” He asked the older boy. Sicheng just sighed, “You know, I’m still working on that. But I think everyone is in some way. We’re just kids. Don’t worry about it too much.” Renjun smiled and walked over to hug his friend. “Thanks, Chenggie.”

Two weeks later, Jeno walked in not expecting much. Again, he was taking it slow. He bumped into Jaemin on the way to their morning class and they decided to walk together. They talked a bit, but as soon as they saw Renjun, they both became speechless.  
He was wearing denim shorts with black fishnets under them, a white short sleeved crop top, a pink and blue windbreaker, and bulky sneakers that made him an inch taller. The younger two boys gulped. They were long gone. Renjun saw this, and while it initially made him want to crawl up into a ball and hide in his locker, he decided to take it the other way and let it only fuel his confidence. He fixed his posture, tilted his chin up a bit, and strode over to his two crushes with an ever-so-subtle smirk on his face. Turns out Renjun not only _could_ be a confident gay, but he _thrived_ at it.

And as you might have already guessed, dear reader, that was the turning point.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you guys though and if you want a part 2 to this. i liked the ending but i see definite potential for more, so just say the word
> 
> as always, have a good week(end), take care of yourselves, and I’ll be back soon! I love you all <3


End file.
